No Playoffs for Four Bonac Teams

East Hampton High’s baseball players, above, had the last laugh in the season’s final series last week, winning three in a row from Amityville; E. Bistrian, hounded below by a Sayville defender, and her very young girls lacrosse teammates went 2-12 this spring.

East Hampton’s track teams played host to the East End Classic invitational Saturday

May. 16, 2018

Jack Graves

The East Hampton High School boys tennis and boys and girls track seasons continue, though it’s all over for baseball, softball, and boys and girls lacrosse, none of these teams having finished with playoff-caliber records.

East Hampton’s track teams, coached by Yani Cuesta and Ben Turnbull, played host to the East End Classic invitational Saturday — a meet at which Kal Lewis, a Shelter Island sophomore, ran the 1,600 in 4 minutes and 18.31 seconds, the fastest mile ever run here, eclipsing the 4:24 East Hampton’s Artie Fisher ran in 1988.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t a “P.R.” for Lewis, who had run a 4:15 at the St. Anthony’s invitational the week before, a time that ranks him third in the state, and second in Suffolk, at the moment.

Ryan Fowkes, a Bonac junior, was the runner-up to Lewis in the 1,600, in 4:30.91. It should be added that Fowkes had the week before run a 4:26.16 at St. A’s, so when it comes to Fisher’s school record Fowkes is in the running. A teammate of his, Robert Weiss, won both the 100 and 200-meter dashes Saturday, in 11.34 and 23.33 seconds. Another Bonacker, Ruben Santana, won the shot-put, in 37-4, and, on Friday, Matt Maya amassed 2,534 points in winning the pentathlon, “second-best in the county,” according to Turnbull.

The 800 was won by another Shelter Islander, Joshua Green, the son of that team’s coach, Toby Green. Interestingly, Shelter Island has no track on which to train — they run on the roads over there.

Frank Bellucci won the 800 and 400 intermediate hurdles in freshman-sophomore competition, and Matthew DiSunno was the runner-up in the freshman-sophomore shot-put.

As for East Hampton’s girls, Helen Barranco won the discus and was third in the shot-put, and Jimi Kramer was second in the 1,500-meter race walk.

The results were far better in freshman-sophomore contests. East Hampton swept the 1,500 with Ava Engstrom, Bella Tarbet, and Penelope Greene. Tarbet and Engstrom finished one-two in the 3,000. Megan Fowkes won the race walk, Isabella Espinoza won the pole vault, and Mikela Junemann, in the 400 hurdles, Molly Mamay, in the 100 hurdles, Ellie Borzilleri, in the long jump, and Lillie Minskoff, in the 200, were runners-up.

Besides East Hampton and Shelter Island, the meet was contested by teams from Greenport, Hampton Bays, Mattituck, Port Jefferson, the Ross School, Sayville, and Southampton.

“I think the meet is becoming more competitive every year,” said Cuesta. “It’s so nice to see it grow. We had some rain, but it wasn’t too bad. We couldn’t have pulled it off without lots of help, including Damien O’Donnell’s food truck, which served athletes, coaches, officials, and spectators.”

As for the tennis team, Kevin McConville, its coach, thinks it has a good draw in the county team tournament, which was to have begun this week. East Hampton is the fifth seed among 24 teams. Should it reach the semifinal round, it would go to the state tournament, said McConville, who wondered if an East Hampton boys team had ever gone before.

Scott Rubenstein, when questioned, said there had been no state team tournament when his sons, Matt and Brian, led East Hampton to a county championship in 2004. That team went undefeated, said Rubenstein, who is the managing partner at East Hampton Indoor Tennis.

Individually, East Hampton’s singles and doubles entrants did not fair particularly well in the county individual tournament, which, like the division tournament, was contested at William Floyd High School. Alex Weseley and Jamie Fairchild, East Hampton’s top doubles team, lost a three-setter in the first round. Jonny De Groot, Bonac’s number-one, was ousted in the second round; Ravi MacGurn, the number-two, lost in the first round. Ditto Luke Louchheim, the number-three, who drew Westhampton Beach’s Danny Tocco in the first round, losing to him in straight sets.

Back to track, the division championships are to be contested next week. The girls are to compete Monday and Wednesday at Connetquot High School, the boys on Tuesday and next Thursday at Hampton Bays. The state qualifier meet, for boys and girls, is to be held at Comsewogue High on June 1 and 2.

Recapping the spring records, boys tennis was a co-champion, with Westhampton, in league competition, finishing at 9-1. Boys lacrosse, a combined team based at Southampton, finished at 5-9; softball finished at 7-11, baseball ended the season at 3-15 (sweeping Amityville in its final series), girls lacrosse posted a 2-12 record, girls track won one meet, and boys track went winless.